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Thursday, August 28, 2003
The Promise and the Threat
The Myth: Iraqis, prior to occupation, lived in little beige tents set up on the sides of little dirt roads all over Baghdad. The men and boys would ride to school on their camels, donkeys and goats. These schools were larger versions of the home units and for every 100 students, there was one turban-wearing teacher who taught the boys rudimentary math (to count the flock) and reading. Girls and women sat at home, in black burkas, making bread and taking care of 10-12 children.
The Truth: Iraqis lived in houses with running water and electricity. Thousands of them own computers. Millions own VCRs and VCDs. Iraq has sophisticated bridges, recreational centers, clubs, restaurants, shops, universities, schools, etc. Iraqis love fast cars (especially German cars) and the Tigris is full of little motor boats that are used for everything from fishing to water-skiing.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that most people choose to ignore the little prefix ‘re’ in the words ‘rebuild’ and ‘reconstruct’. For your information, ‘re’ is of Latin origin and generally means ‘again’ or ‘anew’.
In other words- there was something there in the first place. We have hundreds of bridges. We have one of the most sophisticated network of highways in the region: you can get from Busrah, in the south, to Mosul, in the north, without once having to travel upon those little, dusty, dirt roads they show you on Fox News. We had a communications system so advanced, it took the Coalition of the Willing 3 rounds of bombing, on 3 separate nights, to damage the Ma’moun Communications Tower and silence our telephones.
Yesterday, I read how it was going to take up to $90 billion to rebuild Iraq. Bremer was shooting out numbers about how much it was going to cost to replace buildings and bridges and electricity, etc.
Listen to this little anecdote. One of my cousins works in a prominent engineering company in Baghdad- we’ll call the company H. This company is well-known for designing and building bridges all over Iraq. My cousin, a structural engineer, is a bridge freak. He spends hours talking about pillars and trusses and steel structures to anyone who’ll listen.
As May was drawing to a close, his manager told him that someone from the CPA wanted the company to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, decided it wasn’t too extensive, but it would be costly. They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward- $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.
Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let’s pretend he hasn’t been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let’s pretend he didn’t work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated- let’s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination.
A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000 !!
Something you should know about Iraq: we have over 130,000 engineers. More than half of these engineers are structural engineers and architects. Thousands of them were trained outside of Iraq in Germany, Japan, America, Britain and other countries. Thousands of others worked with some of the foreign companies that built various bridges, buildings and highways in Iraq. The majority of them are more than proficient- some of them are brilliant.
Iraqi engineers had to rebuild Iraq after the first Gulf War in 1991 when the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ was composed of over 30 countries actively participating in bombing Baghdad beyond recognition. They had to cope with rebuilding bridges and buildings that were originally built by foreign companies, they had to get around a lack of raw materials that we used to import from abroad, they had to work around a vicious blockade designed to damage whatever infrastructure was left after the war… they truly had to rebuild Iraq. And everything had to be made sturdy, because, well, we were always under the threat of war.
Over a hundred of the 133 bridges were rebuilt, hundreds of buildings and factories were replaced, communications towers were rebuilt, new bridges were added, electrical power grids were replaced… things were functioning. Everything wasn’t perfect- but we were working on it.
And Iraqis aren’t easy to please. Buildings cannot just be made functionary. They have to have artistic touches- a carved pillar, an intricately designed dome, something unique… not necessarily classy or subtle, but different. You can see it all over Baghdad- fashionable homes with plate glass windows, next to classic old ‘Baghdadi’ buildings, gaudy restaurants standing next to classy little cafes… mosques with domes so colorful and detailed they look like glamorous Faberge eggs… all done by Iraqis.
My favorite reconstruction project was the Mu’alaq Bridge over the Tigris. It is a suspended bridge that was designed and built by a British company. In 1991 it was bombed and everyone just about gave up on ever being able to cross it again. By 1994, it was up again, exactly as it was- without British companies, with Iraqi expertise. One of the art schools decided that although it wasn’t the most sophisticated bridge in the world, it was going to be the most glamorous. On the day it was opened to the public, it was covered with hundreds of painted flowers in the most outrageous colors- all over the pillars, the bridge itself, the walkways along the sides of the bridge. People came from all over Baghdad just to stand upon it and look down into the Tigris.
So instead of bringing in thousands of foreign companies that are going to want billions of dollars, why aren’t the Iraqi engineers, electricians and laborers being taken advantage of? Thousands of people who have no work would love to be able to rebuild Iraq… no one is being given a chance.
The reconstruction of Iraq is held above our heads like a promise and a threat. People roll their eyes at reconstruction because they know (Iraqis are wily) that these dubious reconstruction projects are going to plunge the country into a national debt only comparable to that of America. A few already rich contractors are going to get richer, Iraqi workers are going to be given a pittance and the unemployed Iraqi public can stand on the sidelines and look at the glamorous buildings being built by foreign companies.
I always say this war is about oil. It is. But it is also about huge corporations that are going to make billions off of reconstructing what was damaged during this war. Can you say Haliburton? (Which, by the way, got the very first contracts to replace the damaged oil infrastructure and put out ‘oil fires’ way back in April).
Well, of course it’s going to take uncountable billions to rebuild Iraq, Mr. Bremer, if the contracts are all given to foreign companies! Or perhaps the numbers are this frightening because Ahmad Al-Chalabi is the one doing the books- he *is* the math expert, after all.
- posted by river @ 6:46 PM
And now let us get to know "our" governing council:
Let's Play Musical Chairs...
The nine-member rotating presidency is a failure at first sight. It’s also a failure at second, third, fourth… and ninth sight. The members of the rotating presidency, composed of 4 Shi’a Muslims, 2 Sunni Muslims and 2 Kurds, were selected on a basis of ethnicity and religion.
It is a way of further dividing the Iraqi population. It is adding confusion to chaos and disorder. Just the concept of an ethnically and religiously selected council to run the country is repulsive. Are people supposed to take sides according to their ethnicity or religion? How, nine months down the line, are they going to select one president… or will we always have 9 presidents to govern the country? Does every faction of the Iraqi population need a separate representative? If they do, then why weren’t the Christians represented? Why weren’t the Turkomen represented? Would two more members to add to the nine really have made that big a difference?
The nine dancing puppets- excuse me, rotating presidents- were exclusively selected from the “Governing Council”, an interim council chosen by the CPA. The first thing the 25-member Governing Council did to alienate itself from the people was the fatal decision to make April 9 the new Iraqi National Day. People were incredulous when Bahr Ul Iloom (one of the nine puppets), read out the announcement.
April 9, 2003 was a nightmare beyond anyone’s power to describe. Baghdad was up in smoke that day- explosions everywhere, American troops crawling all over the city, fires, looting, fighting, and killing. Civilians were being evacuated from one area to the other, houses were being shot at by tanks, cars were being burned by Apache helicopters… Baghdad was full of death and destruction on April 9. Seeing tanks in your city, under any circumstance, is perturbing. Seeing foreign tanks in your capital is devastating.
But back to rotating presidents... Insiders say that all 9 members of the council hate each other. Meetings sometimes end in shouting, name-calling and insults. The one thing they do agree on is that Bremer is God. His word is Scripture.
It was decided that each one of them would get a chance to govern their adoring Iraqi population a month. After several arguments and, I imagine, threats, ultimatums and tantrums, it was decided that each one of the members would get their turn in alphabetical order (the Arabic alphabet).
So here is the cast of the most elaborate puppet show Iraq has ever seen (in order of appearance).
The Puppet: Ibraheim Al-Jaffari
56-year-old head of the Islamic Daawa party who was living in Iran and London.
The Al-Daawa Islamic Party debuted in 1958 as the most prominent Shi’a political movement. Al-Daawa ‘activists’ learned their techniques from an extremist Iranian group known as ‘Fida’yeen El-Islam’ and were distinctive for their use of explosives to make political statements. Universities, schools and recreational centers were often targets.
Ibraheim Al-Jaffari makes me uncomfortable. He isn’t very direct or coherent. He speaks in a suspiciously low voice and has a shifty gaze that never seems to settle on the camera.
The Puppet: Ahmad Al-Chalabi
This guy is a real peach. He is the head of the Iraqi National Congress and heavily backed by the Pentagon. He was a banker who embezzled millions from the Petra Bank in Jordan. My favorite part of his life story is how he escaped from Jordan in the trunk of a car… a modern-day Cleopatra, if you will. When asked if he thinks the war on Iraq was justified, even if WMD aren’t found, he immediately (and rather huffily) replies, “Of course- *I* wouldn’t be sitting here in Iraq if it weren’t for the war…” As if he’s God’s gift to humanity. He’s actually America’s gift to the Iraqi people- the crowning glory of the war, chaos and occupation: the looter of all looters.
The Puppet: Iyad Allawi
A former Iraqi intelligence officer, and former Ba’ath member, who was sent to London on a scholarship from the former Ba’athist government. Rumor has it that when the scholarship ran out, he denounced his Ba’ath membership and formed the Iraqi National Accord. He has been living in London ever since 1971.
The Puppet: Jalal Talabani
Head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The PUK controls the southeastern part of the autonomous Kurdish area in the north. Scintillating rumor on the street: before he became a ‘leader’, he had a nightclub in Turkey where he was running an illegitimate… umm… we’ll call it an ‘escort service’. The truth is that he is the rival of Massoud Berazani, the other leader in the autonomous Kurdish region and their rivalry would often lead to bloodshed between their supporters. His famous quote: “Politics is a whore”.
The Puppet: Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim
Deputy leader of SCIRI (Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq). He has been in Iran for decades and is the commander of ‘Badir’s Army’ or what is also known as the Badir Brigade- responsible for a lot of the post-war chaos. The frightening thing is that there are rumors of negotiations between SCIRI and the CPA about allowing the Brigade to be in charge of ‘security’ in some regions.
The Puppet: Adnan Al-Pachichi
A Sunni Arab who is- brace yourself- 81 years old (some say it’s 84). He was foreign minister for 2 years in the ‘60s. My grandfather remembers him *vaguely*. I’m sorry, but he just looks too weary to be running Iraq. It will be amazing if he makes it to elections. He has been outside of Iraq ever since the late ‘60s and seems to know as little about modern Iraq as the Iraqis know about him.
The Puppet: Mohsen Abdul Hamid
The secretary of the Islamic Party- a Sunni fundamentalist Islamic group (a branch of the Islamic Brotherhood). Yet another fundamentalist group, but this one was chosen to keep the Sunni fundamentalists quiet.
The Puppet: Mohammed Bahr Ul Iloom
Otherwise known as ‘Mohammed Bahr Ul- who???’ Very few people seem to have heard of him. He is a Shi’a Muslim cleric who fled Iraq in 1991. He was in exile in London. He is also in his 80s and his only political qualification seems to be the fact that he fled and considered himself in exile. He promptly squelched any chance he had at gaining popularity by being the one selected to declare April 9 the Iraqi National Day.
The Puppet: Massoud Berezani
The head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and rival of Jalal Talabani. He was backed by the US in north Iraq. His conflicts with Talabani have resulted in the deaths of thousands of Kurds in bloody battles and assassinations and the exile of others. To see them sitting at the same table, staring adoringly at ‘Father Bremer’, you would think they had always been the best of friends- it’s a fascinating lesson in politics. A question poses itself: if they couldn’t control a few provinces in the north, how do they expect to be able to govern all of Iraq?
The two Kurdish leaders also control an armed militia known as ‘Bayshmarga’. The Bayshmarga are multitalented. They act as bodyguards, and smugglers. They were caught smuggling cars, currency and artifacts. These last two days there have been clashes between them and the Turkomen in Kirkuk.
The most infuriating thing is hearing Bremer talk about how the members of the rotating presidency represent the Iraqi people. In reality, they represent the CPA and Bremer. They are America’s Puppets (some of them are Iran’s). They do not govern Iraq or Iraqis in any way- they are merely very highly paid translators: Bremer gives the orders and they translate them to an incredulous public. The majority of them were trained using American tax dollars, and now they are being ‘kept’ by the CPA using Iraqi oil money.
It’s a bad start to democracy, being occupied and having your government and potential leaders selected for you by the occupying powers… On the other hand, could we really expect more from a country whose president was ‘appointed’ by the Supreme Court?
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2003_08_01_riverbendblog_archive.htmlIn my humble opinion we have much to be ashamed of. We let the bastards running this administration get away with this. This young woman posted this last year.
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